Cholesterol Drugs Studied for Traumatic Brain Injury Patients

A Johns Hopkins study reported in the Journal of Trauma found that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may have a role in the treatment of traumatic brain injuries (“TBI”).  Older adult TBI victims, who had previously been on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs such as Lipitor and Mevacor, when hospitalized with serious head injuries, were 76 percent more likely to survive than those not taking the drugs.  The prior use of statin cholesterol drugs was also associated with improved functional recovery at 12 months post-injury for those older patients.  However, those TBI victims with heart disease did not benefit from the prior statin drug use.

Eric B. Schneider, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, believes that it is not the lowering of cholesterol that’s helping the brain recover, but that there are other, less well-known properties of statins that are causing these results.  Statins also have an anti-inflammatory effect, and they also are known to modulate the body’s immune response.  Schneider wants to now do a clinical trial administering statins to brain-injured patients, not already on the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, immediately upon arrival in a hospital emergency department to see if the same effect is achieved.

The researchers have cautioned that they cannot recommend that statins be used as a blanket treatment for TBI patients at this time, because there are unknowns and downsides to the drugs, including the risk that some people may develop serious muscle disorders.  But if a significant benefit in patients treated with statins after a TBI were found, it would open up a wide variety of possibilities for its use, including giving statins people who are likely to be exposed to mild TBI, such as football players or soldiers in combat.